Selling ebooks online can be really profitable but there are a few important things you need to know in order to earn an income from it.
In this article I will share useful tips about how to find out if there is a market for what you are offering, if it is a better idea to write your own material or sell someone elses ebooks and finally where to sell your ebook for best results.
Selling information on the web is very profitable because you write the information one time and customers are able to download it immediately after payment.There is no need for a warehouse with expensive postage and packaging.
Customers will receive their purchase instantly and you will save money at the same time.This means that you can sell your e-book for less and make more money.
#1.Is there a market for my ebook?
It is a waste of both time and money to write a great ebook if you don´t know that it will sell.Many people who are selling information on the web first write the ebook and then do market research when it should be the other way around.A ground rule is, if there is a magazine written about the topic and/or there is a TV show (for instance weight loss), then there is a market for it.
Basically, you need to find a niche that has low competition but many people are still interested in the topic and willing to spend money to solve their problem.Market research is very time consuming but you cannot guess what people want.If you don´t know exactly what people are looking for, then you will waste your time and money.
What are you interested in? Chances are that many other people are too.Visit discussion boards and forums that talk about things you are interested in.Browse around and see what they are talking about, especially what problems they have and need a solution.You could write an ebook that solves their problem and they would be willing to pay you money for doing so.
Write down all your ideas and do keyword research to find out how many people are searching for that keyword phrase in the search engines per month and how much competition there is and if the phrase is commercial.As I mentioned before, you need to find a topic will low competition, lots of searches per month and information about how commercial the phrase is, are people willing to spend money? There are a few great external keyword tools on the web that you should take advantage of.
Professional internet marketers often use a tool called Market Samurai for analyzing keyword phrases.You can download the tool for free at MarketSamurai.com and try it for 2 weeks.It is the best tool for finding high-traffic and low-competition markets.
#2.Writing your own ebook vs. Outsourcing vs. Selling someone elses
Which is better – writing your own or selling someone elses ebook for a commission? If you write your own ebook, it will be 100% unique.You are the only one selling it and you will keep all the profits.Writing your own ebook can be really fun especially if you choose a niche that you are knowledgeable in.This allows you to share tips and “inside secrets” that provides more value for the reader and helps solve their problem.
You can also outsource the writing to a freelancer.This is a really good option if the ebook is about something you are not knowledgeable in.If you want your ebook to be written in English, choose a writer that is a native speaker in order to avoid grammatical errors.You will also need professional looking covers and graphics.There are a few places you can outsource these things for under $1,000.I recommend visiting a website called ELance.com.
Selling someone elses ebook for a commission is perhaps the most popular way.This method can work if you already have a website that talks about closely related things.However, your reputation is important and you cannot afford to sell ebooks that are of low quality.If you are selling someone elses ebooks on your own site, make sure you buy the ebook yourself and read it before you link to it.Reading the ebook allows you to write a review about it which makes it easier to promote it and earn commissions.
Another option to selling ebooks online is buying with resell rights.You are buying someone elses ebook and have the right to sell it online and keep all the profits.The most important thing is quality! Low quality means lots of refunds and a bad reputation.You need to be careful.
#3.Where to sell your ebook?
When you have your ebook, it is time to earn money from it.There are many different options when it comes to selline ebooks online.Most people want to automate things as much as possible and ebooks is perhaps one of the best ways to earn passive income online.Here are 3 options.
Another important thing is the price point.How much can you charge for it? Is it better to sell more for less or less for more? It all depends on the information you provide and the niche.People associate cheap with bad quality and expensive with really great quality.I would keep the price between $27
and $97.
You have made the ebook to make money and also help people who are looking for a solution to their problem.People are willing to pay quite a lot in order to solve a problem.Take a look on the web, how much are similar ebooks selling for? This might give you an idea.
1.Get a domain name and build a sales page!
You can get a .com domain from Godaddy.com and a cheap hosting account from Hostgator.com.Make a simple WordPress blog with a sales page to your product (remember to outsource the writing of the sales page) add a PayPal “Buy now” button and you are ready to go.When someone buys your ebook they can download it directly after payment.PayPal has some great merchant services that makes it really easy to setup.Customers can pay using PayPal or all major credit cards.The problem with this approach is that you need to take care of possible refunds and answer questions.
2.Sell your ebook on big e-commerce websites!
Instead of investing money in your own domain name, hosting account and paying someone to write to a great sales page, sell your ebook on huge e-commerce sites like TripleClicks.com, and ShareASale.com.Their customer service will take care of possible refunds, people can join their affiliate program to sell your ebook (more money for you!) and they will pay you automatically every month.It is free to sign up for these e-commerce sites, you can have your item for sale at all of them if you want.You just set it up and it takes care of itself.
3.Selling your ebook on Amazon.com can be really profitable, here´s how it works:
#4.How will people find my ebook?
Marketing your ebook is also really important, if no one knows you are offering a solution to their problem, how can they buy? The easiest way to get people to buy your ebook is to join discussion boards that are in the same niche as your ebook.You are not allowed to advertise on forums, but you can use a signature file.
The sig file will automatically appear under every post you make on the forums.The sig file should naturally lead to your ebook sales page.If you decide to sell it on Amazon, it is possible to get a lot of organic search engine traffic because Amazon seems to rank really well in search engines.
Social bookmarking is also an effective way to get the word out.Almost everyone has a Facebook or Twitter account these days.
If you have a blog you could write a review about your ebook and link it to the sales page.Another way is to purchase cheap ezine advertising and have ezine owners to publish your advertisement to their lists.
These were a few simple ideas for selling ebooks online.I know this can be done in many different ways, this is just how I have made money with it.
{ 30 comments… read them below or add one }
Have you had any luck selling ebooks?
I am thinking of it being one of things I look into doing, very soon.
Twitter: tlmarketing_net
February 21, 2008 at 1:43 am
Hi Forrest! Selling ebooks should be one of the many income streams you have.I see you are blogging, so the easiest way to sell ebooks would be right from your blog.I have got a few sales, but this is something I have just started with.
-Tom
I can’t tell you how much I have spent on eBooks and even though I have made a few requests for a refund for the most part it’s been money well spent. More of an investment in my blogging future.
I do sell ebooks on my hobby blogs. I like using ClickBank for this as they make it easy. I don’t care for their marketplace interface so I purchase CB Engine, it’s so much easier and more detailed at the same time.
I will eventually write a couple of ebooks that fit my hobby blogs but for now I keep myself pretty busy. After all I must leave myself enough time to enjoy my hobbies and the money they make me.
Selling ebooks can be a very lucrative business online. I think that the easiest way to make money selling ebooks, or to get you started, at least, is to actually sell them on eBay. There’s a great ebook you can read that teaches you how to automate the entire process called eBay Imperium. Great book, very organized and written by a powerseller himself.
Twitter: tlmarketing_net
February 29, 2008 at 7:12 am
@ James
Thanks for commenting. Clickbank is the best medium for selling ebooks.No need to worry about anything, just collect your check when you make sales.
@ Real Auction Income
Hi! There are many good ebooks online that I would need to read,just not enough time.Any suggestions where to start
Nice articles you got here, very usefull for every one who need some tips or references. Ishould put some of your articles on my website. Maybe we can share our articles someday. Let me know if i can share my article here. You can reach me at http://www.tipscollections.com. Thanks
Twitter: tlmarketing_net
March 14, 2008 at 6:18 am
Hi Taufik! You are welcome to write an article, I will post it on my blog.
Very sincere advice. Thanks.
Very balanced article. Ebooks are a great resource for consumers and a great product for online business people. I have created and sold a number of them myself with good success.
One update to what you’ve written. Ebay ended the ability to auction digital download products which has had a profound impact on the way people sell on that site.
If you want to sell a digital download you need to create an eBay Classified ad. Otherwise, you’ll need to burn the ebook to a disc and sell the physical product instead and ship it out.
Andrew Seltz – Ebook Marketing Secretss last blog post..Free Download: One Into A Million E-Book
Twitter: tlmarketing_net
January 9, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Hi Andrew, thanks for stopping by.Thanks for the update, everything changes so fast
I have heard about news of being able to create your own e-book for free online. The idea has crossed my mind several times because, I am the kinda girl who loves to blog and keep a diary. E-books can definitely be profitable but, only if you have good content and stuff that your readers are interested in. I am still asking myself who would read the ramblings of a talented WAHM who tries to make some extra money online. I think that my strongest talent is web design or graphics but that will not make a great e-book. What do you think would be a suitable e-book idea for a SAHM ?
Now the new craze of selling through classifieds has taken off with ebay banning ebooks.
I think e-books are an excellent way to make some extra money but its not as simple as creating a small website throwing up your book and expecting millions. You have to be able to market it correctly do some search engine optimization and make sure that the sales page actually addresses the issues of the user.
Selling books could be one of the great methods on earning money online but its not on my priority list as of now as I’m not ready yet to start… thanks anyway for sharing this great article. I will try this soon…
Nice article Tom. I’ve seen a number of my fellow bloggers do very well from selling their own ebooks. I’m focused on audio books at the moment, but in the future I plan to produce and sell an ebook.
Hi, I like this concept. I visited your blog first time and just been your fan. It is quite interesting and useful . Would you like to give me detail information how to start this process.
Thanks for a wonderful post.
Clickbank is the perfect affiliate payment tool. I agree with the article above, however it is not ideal if you are looking for affiliates. There are better ways to find affiliates, most affiliates on clickbank are savvy and will push your new good niche idea till they are making lots of sales then simply whip up their own sales page and product. I never list my new products on clickbank marketplace, I have too many niches that have been infultrated this way.
Ebooks have become a very easy way to make money with getting products. These days one can easily create his own ebooks with easy online tools and even publish it at very great sites. But one don’t really need to make his own ebook if he don’t want to. With Resell Rights and Master Resell Rights it’s so easy to start making money immediately. The other advantage off course in selling ebooks is that you always get your own money into your Alertpay account or Paypal accounts.
Twitter: tlmarketing_net
September 2, 2010 at 4:24 am
Hi Jason , you are right.It is easy to create an ebook but it must be full of useful information, not just another marketing pitch.
PLR ebooks are available on nearly every topic under the sun, and each one of them comes with its individual license agreement. They are beneficial to business people both as a source of information and as a product that can be marketed in different ways. However, due to the often sloppy presentation and packaging of the content, their true value is often underestimated by most people seeking to make money through the Internet.
You know I have really thought about getting into selling e-books. I have done quite a bit of selling online and understand the fundamentals. I think e-books would be a great addition to my online business thanks for the tips.
I have recently written my own ebook and I’m still crafting ways on how to sell it. Boy, its not easy.
Thanks for this really interesting post, I put together an ebook sometime ago and tried to sell it from my blog, but this just did not seem to work, not enough people coming to my blog is the biggest problem. I then listed it for sale on ebay, but as I sell other items there I ended up removing it as I did not want ebay to block my account. And I was reading that people very often beleive that you are running some scam if you are selling ebooks on ebay. After that I joined up with other site including amazon.com that allow self published ebooks to be sold. This worked out really well, joined a few other sites as well such as ebid.net and cqout and today i joined alibie.com as they are now allowing the sale of ebooks.
I am not getting rich, but I have sold a few copies of it and had some really nice feedback.
David
I think selling e-books online is a potentially decent way to earn some money while working from home. In fact, I know of people who are so successful with their online businesses that they quit from their full time job and pursue a part time career with their websites!
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Can you recommend a company that can take my research and create an ebook? Also thanks for your tips on this topic, most valuable
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February 18, 2011 at 5:03 am
Hi Danny, thanks for stopping by! You can outsource almost anything these days online and often for a very reasonable price.Have you checked out a site called Fiverr.com? Here´s a short review I made some time ago. http://www.tlmarketing.net/outsource-your-marketing-tasks-with-fiverr-com/
Selling e-books is undoubtedly a good and easy way of making money online. However, it needs to be informative and proofred so buyers will get their money’d worth. I have checked out Fiverr and I like it. People should check this out too:
I have tried selling ebook from a company client and it was quite hard before because ebook was just introduce to the market that time. I think now ebook sells great because people already knew the benefit they can get out of there.
Kirsty recently posted..Magento Books
You can certainly make money online by selling ebooks but this ebook should be something that will give value to the ones who will buy it and not something that anyone can find in a few minutes by just searching on google, the next step is to have a professional looking sales page that will make visitors think that they need to buy this ebook.
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I personally believe that the best way to make money online is by selling ebooks. Out of any products on the internet ebooks offer the highest commissions. If you go to clickbank you will notice they offer the highest commission rates out of any company online. The commissions could reach over 70%. What that means is the person whose book you are selling will make only 30% of the value of the book and you will make 70%! It is not an easy job to become an affiliate marketer but if you put in enough time and effort you can be successful. Some affiliate marketers on the internet do make millions online but the majority make a lot less. You can be successful you just need to be willing to put in the time and effort.
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